FPS

I have a confession to make: I’ve known about the Destiny Alpha for a few months now. Let’s say a friend managed to get a code and under the strictest of secrets, he downloaded it. What I saw at first didn’t impress me. There wasn’t much content. There were just interesting concepts. I saw people trying to drive their hover bikes up a dirt ramp and people engaging in missions that I didn’t have the backstory to. But that’s quickly accelerated into something special over the past few weeks.

I was checking out the beta myself and discovered that the world had fleshed out a bit. Random people helped me out and went on their way. At E3 2014, Bungie offered more details about the Destiny universe, and suddenly, like an epiphany, I realized the scope the creators of Halo were working with. An entity called the Traveler, which was discovered on Mars ignited a golden age of humanity as people started colonizing the solar system. That all ended as beings called the Forsaken attacked, interrupted a thriving civilization and made it wilt.

Destiny puts players in the role of guardians, who still have the light of the Traveler, and they have to defend humanity’s last city against this alien force. The premise puts players at the center of the narrative and gives purpose to the missions I was seeing and playing.Continue Reading →

There are dozens of free-to-play shooters out there, but Rumble Entertainment is trying to separate itself from the pack with Ballistic. Developed by Aquiris, a studio based out of Brazil, the team-based shooter offers everything players should expect nowadays. It boasts seven classes and a persistent leveling system, but the killer feature is that Ballistic runs off your browser.

All players have to do is click on the link and they can be in a Team Deathmatch on their laptops on the road or they can be taking Control Points at the office after hours. From what, I’ve played the game, which runs off Unity, is serviceable. Fans shouldn’t expect Battlefield 4 but it stands up in quality to a game coming from PlayStation 2 era when it comes to visuals.

Producer Jim Tso describes the game as having a rock-paper-scissor gameplay with each class having a counter. For example, there’s a speedy, shotgun-carrying class called the Beserker that can wreak havoc on the map. To counter that, Aquiris created the Tank, which can stand up to the Berserker’s buckshot while delivering a more powerful blast. To stop the Tank from dominating, another team can pick a Wraith, which has the ability to go into stealth and snipe him from afar.

Titanfall , the much anticipated shooter from the creators of Call of Duty, has official landed. I’ve got some early access and I’ve been playing through the game over the past weekend. Here are some quick thoughts on how the game is performing so far and whether it lives up to the hype:

THE GAME IS RUNNING SMOOTH MOST OF THE TIME: This was the biggest issue for me. With Electronic Arts history with online games, it was critical that this launch ran well. With servers from Microsoft and an all-hands-on-deck mentality, Titanfall is doing fine. I can get into matches and the game runs fine with an acceptable amount of lag. I’ve run into a few moments where the game sputters toward the beginning of the match, but otherwise, everything is stellar. Everyone involved is doing a great job at putting out any potential fires.

THE STREAMING ANGLE: The other important piece to Titanfall’s launch is the introduction of Twitch.tv broadcast. Unfortunately, that’s not running as well as the game. From my experience, I’ve crashed a few times when streaming. I don’t know if that’s on the game’s end or Twitch’s end but I figure I’ll stream the old-fashioned way with a PC and PVR.

AND THE GAMEPLAY IS … EVOLUTIONARY: Let’s face it the military shooter has stagnated a lot over the years, offering gamers more of the same. Developers tweak a few things here and there, but mostly, the gameplay is still the same. With Titanfall, Respawn Entertainment adds a layers of combat to the game. The sci-fi universe that Frank Zampella and Jason West explores offers a fresh look at combat. As pilots, players will be fighting each other and giant mechs called Titans. They’ll also enter head-to-head robot battles. What’s amazing is how Respawn Entertainment blends these disparate elements into a cohesive whole. Everything fits and is seamless. The pilot abilities to double jump and wall run are a game-changer. It forces players to rethink how they move and watching someone play and navigate the world can be jaw-dropping. A lot of players who grew up on Call of Duty will have to rethink how they play.

THE STORY IS OK AND THAT’S OK: Don’t expect Shakespeare. This is a popcorn movie type of game, where players run through a campaign that’s essentially several multiplayer matches. Respawn Entertainment bookends the matches with story elements introducing the reason for going to the map and the objectives. Occasionally, players will see characters like Graves, Bish or MacAllan pop on their screens to tell players how the mission is going, but the narrative follows a predetermine plot no matter which side — the IMC or the Militia — wins. (Players can go through both campaigns in three hours or so) That’s a little disappointing. But this is multiplayer campaign is an example of where gaming is headed. More and more, developers are trying to intertwine the single-player and multiplayer experience.

IT’S NOT PERFECT BUT THERE’S MUCH MORE ROOM TO GROW:Titanfall feels like the first course of what’s going to a bigger franchise. The foundation is set and it’s excellent. Respawn can play around, adding more mechs, new weapons. They can figure out a way perhaps to have branching narratives or ways for players to have a more meaningful impact on the story. But what I’ve played so far is very, very good

FOR MORE: I’m currently on level 44 and I’m working my way up to 50. You can check out my Titanfall livestream here. Look for a full review at noon tomorrow.

With its dual analog sticks and shoulder buttons, the PlayStation Vita is a natural fit for first-person shooters. Unfortunately, its list of FPS titles is short and full of unmitigated disasters. Resistance: Burning Skies was average, lacking the visual oomph players were expecting. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified was universally panned for its spotty online play and short campaign.

Fans have much higher hopes for Killzone: Mercenary Developed by Guerrilla Cambridge, the title looks the part of a next-gen shooter. In terms of tech, it’s the most visually impressive on the system with graphics that wouldn’t be out of place on a current-gen console.

Battlefield 3was a game-changer for me. It was the title that drew me back into PC gaming. The startling visuals crossed the line where I didn’t know what was real and what was computer-generated. The shooter looked scary good and I assumed it’d be years before they would top that. I was wrong.

They reintroduced a more powerful game engine called Frostbite 3 and they’re taking another stab at creating a more dramatic shooter with Battlefield 4. From the 17 minutes of footage I saw at a preview event at the AMC Metreon, they could be on the right track. Once again, DICE impresses you with the visuals that look photorealistic. The eyes-only demo ticked backward from the intense moment when the service members are stuck in a sinking car to the beginning of the mission.

There seems to be a new cast of characters with Irish, Pac, Dunn and Recker. it appears that players take on the role of Recker. They’re in what looks like LibyaAzerbaijan obtaining some intel and they’ve run into some Russian Spec-Ops. The squad gets in a shootout as they try to escape from the mysterious forces after them. This time around, it seems as though DICE amps the explosions and fireworks. In the brief shootout that began the playable demo, I saw grenades blow apart facades of buildings and cars explode from gunfire. Battlefield 4 seems to have more pop or at least flammable vehicles.

Back in 1992, I was disappointed with Alien 3. Expecting another tension-filled action flick, I got a slow-moving film that expanded the fiction but didn’t particularly grab me the way the previous ones had. It was a decent movie but it failed to live up to the past two’s standards. (Let’s ignore the Dumpster fire that is Alien: Resurrection.)

Fast-forward more than 20 years later and those hoping for a real sequel to Aliens may finally have their prayers answered. Thanks to Gearbox Software, gamers will have an opportunity to go back to LV-426 and the warship Sulaco. Taking place 17 weeks after the events of the James Cameron film, Aliens: Colonial Marines puts players in the role of Col. Christopher Winter who is aboard the Sephora.

They’re responding to the distress signal sent out by Corporal Hicks in Aliens. They arrive to see the Sulaco still orbiting the planet for some reason, and it’s the location for one of the two levels that I played during a preview event last week in San Francisco. Winter and his comrades board the derelict ship only to find out that the Weyland-Yutani corporation has taken over it. They were using it as some kind of lab.

I imagined this would be the headline coming out of a recentFar Cry 3 event: Tiger mauls eight journalists. It’s hard not to feel that way after reading recent news stories and seeing Shere Khan pacing back and forth behind bars. But I put the remote danger of the tiger knocking the small steel cage over, lunging at my colleagues and eating my foot in the back of my mind.

At the preview session, I spent a four hours with Ubisoft Montreal’s follow-up to the nihilistic shooter. Far Cry 2 rebooted the series away from Jack Carver and the sci-fi ghetto and took it in a new directions. After a positive critical reaction, the team likely figured it was going in the right direction.

That’s why Far Cry 3 is more like the sequel than the original. It’s gritty. It’s dark. But not all traces of the first game is removed — it’s set on a tropical island. The developers put players in the role of Jason Grant, who is celebrating with family and friends on a remote island. They’re sky diving, drinking and horsing around on the beach. The next thing you know: Jason Brody and his brother, Grant, are captured in cage with their lives at a knife’s point.

Here are seven thoughts about what happens afterward and how Far Cry 3 is shaping up.

Sometimes I wonder who makes up these made-up holidays. We have International Talk Like A Pirate Day (Sept. 19), which is one of the funnest days of the year in the newsroom. There’s also a good story behind it. I’m pushing for an official Talk Like Macho Man Day on May 20, that’s the date of his death. If that wasn’t enough, today — I’m talking about Oct. 5 — it’s Global James Bond Day, according to the official site of 007. So what’s special about the date? Oct. 5, 1962, was the release date of the first Bond film in Britain, and 50 years later, we’re on the verge of a new film entry to the series as well as a new video game.

Activision sent over some screenshots and video of the opening credits to its latest Bond game 007 Legends. The Eurocom-developed title lets gamers play through some of the most famous scenes from the spy flicks. They’ll go through moments in Goldfinger, Die Another Day, Moonraker, License to Kill, Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Skyfall. I posted a screenshot earlier this year. But for newer ones, hit the jump.

To say that the Call of Juarez: The Cartel was a disappointment would be an understatement. The developer, Techland, wanted to take the series in a new, modern direction. Instead, they may as well have driven the series off a cliff and set the crashed remains on fire.

But everyone deserves a second chance, especially the team that also made the fantasticDead Island. They have another try at the series and went back to its roots in the Wild West. I had a chance to check out Call of Juarez: Gunslinger at Ubisoft’s Digital Day recently. The first-person shooter is scheduled to be a digital-only release on the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and the PC.

I’m on a tour group but the locale we’re exploring is a place you likely never heard of. It’s filled with inhabitants you don’t know. And on trips to foreign places, you normally don’t board monstrous flying transports on a mission to take over enemy bases. But that’s par for the course on Indar, one of the continents players will be battling over in PlanetSide 2.

This was different from any demo I’ve done. It was executed virtually online as a member from the development team guided five members of the press through the ins and outs of the game. We only knew each other by our handles and the sounds of our voice as we chatted. Most demos are done with PR people on hand in controlled environments, not from the comfort of my desktop.

Immediately, what struck me was how vast the world is. PlanetSide 2 is a follow-up to the massive multiplayer online game that was far ahead of its time. But this time, it looks like the team at Sony Online Entertainment has the right goals in mind with the follow-up. It’s still persistent and players still earn points toward leveling up. (They call it a certification system.) The big difference is that this time around the shooter is visually improved and it also happens to be free to play, a trend that’s gaining steam in the industry.